Help rebuilding a ProTank

[Greg Brown]

Ok, so this is my first attempt at building anything. I have watched several videos on rebuilding the ProTank and they all looked simple enough, but I am struggling trying to figure this out.

I am using 30g Kanthal and am using about 8 wraps for a micro coil. Every time I rest it I have a short but I'm not sure why. I have built 3 coils all with the same result. Am I under the correct impression that each of the wraps cannot touch each other? If so I'm not sure how I am going to get very many wraps.

Everything goes together nicely and looks great but then when I try to fire it I get the short error. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Greg Brown]

I should have mentioned that I am using the following video as a tutorial.

 

[Jeremy Evans]

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...271-micro-coils-increase-vapor-flavor-th.html

all the help with your coils is in the link above, wraps can touch and it is encouraged. make sure the when you mounting your coil to the metal part that you are looking in from the bottom and making sure that the neither the wires or coils are touching the metal sides and that one leg is inside the rubber grommet on the bottom and that the other one is on the outside of it.

that video is good but one thing I would do different is when you go to slide the grommet on the bottom make sure that you are putting the legs on opposite sides instead of the same side, if they are on the same side you might have them touching at the bottom and that would be why you are having a error code thrown

 

[Greg Brown]

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...271-micro-coils-increase-vapor-flavor-th.html

all the help with your coils is in the link above, wraps can touch and it is encouraged. make sure the when you mounting your coil to the metal part that you are looking in from the bottom and making sure that the neither the wires or coils are touching the metal sides and that one leg is inside the rubber grommet on the bottom and that the other one is on the outside of it.

I did all of that and it still wasn't working. However, I decided not to torch it this time and Whola! it worked. I was aiming for a 1.5-1.8 Ohm coil and it is right at 1.8 Ohms! Now to just get my cotton wick in and soak her up for a good vape! I'll let you all know hot it works!

 

[Greg Brown]

Eurekea!!! It vapes!!! That is the best vape I have had yet. The flavor is incredibly intense! I have it on my eVic and it is rocking and absolutely NO burnt hits. That was my biggest gripe with the ProTank is that if I took two hits in a row, the second one tasted burnt. Not now, this is amazing. I guess I will be rebuilding from now on! On top of all of that, I am vaping Gen X Great Melonballs of Fire which has a strong hot cinnamon taste and the cinnamon is really intense now! Almost too intense, but I like it!

The key was not torching the coil. I think I was squeezing it too much or getting it too hot and I might have had overlapping wraps or something. I struggle to see that small so I'm not sure. All that matters is it is working great now!

 

[Jazzi Mike]

Now you need to try your hand at a Kayfun or an Ithaka/it's clone! If you think things are good after rebuilding a pro tank, they are even better with those attys.

 

[Greg Brown]

Now you need to try your hand at a Kayfun or an Ithaka/it's clone! If you think things are good after rebuilding a pro tank, they are even better with those attys.

What do you think about the Trident or Trident clone? I have really been looking at that because of the adjustable airflow. I haven't looked at the one you mentioned. Yeah, I'm super stoked right now. The funny thing is that I had just been talking to the guy at my local vape shop about this yesterday evening and he was showing me some cotton ball wicks that he tried. He said he hated them and thought they tasted like cotton. After watching Rip Trippers video and him saying how good they are I just had to try it. I guess that's proof that what may not work for one person may work out great for another. At this point, I can't see myself going back to silica.

 

[Greg Brown]

Now you need to try your hand at a Kayfun or an Ithaka/it's clone! If you think things are good after rebuilding a pro tank, they are even better with those attys.

Wow, I don't think I will be trying either of those for a while at $110 and $195 that is steep! It may be worth it, but I can't justify that right now. Maybe for my 1 year anniversary of being off analogs!

 

[xtwosm0kesx]

Now you need to try your hand at a Kayfun or an Ithaka/it's clone! If you think things are good after rebuilding a pro tank, they are even better with those attys.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire...eh?

 

[Jazzi Mike]

Wow, I don't think I will be trying either of those for a while at $110 and $195 that is steep! It may be worth it, but I can't justify that right now. Maybe for my 1 year anniversary of being off analogs!

You can get an Ithaka clone (Hercules) for $60-$70, or a Terminator C for around $55. They are both made by Rainbow Heaven and are pretty much part for part identical. You can use parts from the Hercules in the Ithaka and parts from the Term C in the GG Oddysseus.

Also the Ithaka clone from Fasttech is made by a different company but around the same quality and is only $35. The Russian 91% is an almost identical twin to the Kayfun Lite. While most vendors are selling it for $99, you can find it in co-ops and pre-orders for around $50-$60.

I don't have a ton of money to spend on vaping. Actually, when I bought my Kayfun Lite, I sold some stuff on the classifieds and used my Paypal account to buy it from the svoemesto website. I just check places that have pre-orders and co-ops. It sucks having to wait so long to get Vape gear, but it really is worth it in terms of money saved.

 

[ScottP]

I did all of that and it still wasn't working. However, I decided not to torch it this time and Whola! it worked. I was aiming for a 1.5-1.8 Ohm coil and it is right at 1.8 Ohms! Now to just get my cotton wick in and soak her up for a good vape! I'll let you all know hot it works!

Congrats on getting it working. Although I don't see how it has anything to do with torching the Kanthal before making the coil.

 

[Greg Brown]

Congrats on getting it working. Although I don't see how it has anything to do with torching the Kanthal before making the coil.

I think it's because as I was heating the coil up I was applying some pressure with needle nose pliers. I think I may have gotten some of the coils overlapping or something. It worked fine when I didn't torch it, but who knows. It's really simple to rebuild and only took me about 10 minutes to make the coil that worked.

 

[Greg Brown]

Ok, so after using the rebuilt ProTank for the last few hours I am now noticing I am getting some juice in my mouth. It's not a bunch but when the coil fires it seems like it is splattering some juice into my mouth if that makes any sense. What would cause this? Is this an indication that my wick is maybe too large or too small? Or is it something else entirely different? It also seems to be crackling a bit and it didn't do that before the rebuild. Somewhat similar to the sound some cartos make.

 

[Greg Brown]

I think a better way to describe it is that it seems to be flooding out the atty. I'm still not sure if that means my wick is too large or too small.

 

[ScottP]

Try laying a flavor wick down on top of the coil. That should help prevent both flooding and reduce crackling. My personal preference is to use silica wick for the coil (so I can dry burn to clean it and then use cotton yarn for the flavor wick. I may try an all cotton build soon though.

 

[Greg Brown]

Ok, so I had another atomizer for the ProTank so I decided to rebuild it and try some different things. This time I wanted to shoot for a lower Ohm somewhere between 1-1.5 Ohms. Maybe I have this backwards but I assumed that the 32g wire would give me less resistance. However, I wrapped it 6 times and now have a 2.9 Ohm coil. Why is this? Do I have this backwards? I also tried wrapping the 30g 5 times and ended up with a 1.6 Ohm coil. I never actually tried the 1.6 Ohm coil because I screwed it up in the process of putting everything back together. The 2.9 Ohm works ok and has good flavor but very low vapor production with very little throat hit. Still not quite what I am looking for.

 

[Jazzi Mike]

The higher gauge Kanthal, the thinner the wire, and the more ohms/foot. so 32 will get more resistance with less wraps that 30, etc...

 

[ScottP]

The higher gauge Kanthal, the thinner the wire, and the more ohms/foot. so 32 will get more resistance with less wraps that 30, etc...

^^ This.

Yeah gauge/resistance can be a bit confusing at first. Gauge is a reverse measurement in the sense that the larger the number the smaller the wire. Considering the smaller the wire the higher the resistance, it also means the larger the gauge, the higher the resistance.

Think of it like this:
G = Gauge, R = Resistance, D = Diameter of the wire, ^ = up, and v = down

G^ = R^ = Dv
Gv = Rv = D^

Hope that helps.

 

[Greg Brown]

^^ This.

Yeah gauge/resistance can be a bit confusing at first. Gauge is a reverse measurement in the sense that the larger the number the smaller the wire. Considering the smaller the wire the higher the resistance, it also means the larger the gauge, the higher the resistance.

Think of it like this:
G = Gauge, R = Resistance, D = Diameter of the wire, ^ = up, and v = down

G^ = R^ = Dv
Gv = Rv = D^

Hope that helps.

Ok, so I did have it backwards. Also, I just learned that the cotton is awful for the lighter juice that I have. The Great melonballs of fire works well, but then I tried a caramel kettle corn and all I could taste was cotton. I might have to stick to the silica for those juices I guess.

 

[Greg Brown]

Now this is getting interesting. I was playing around and I now have a 1.8 Ohm coil that is working awesome with my Great Melonballs of Fire. It gives me the best flavor and vapor combination yet. Not too strong and not too weak with plenty of vapor. I do notice that it has tightened up the draw on the ProTank which is fine by me since I thought it was a bit on the airy side anyway.

What's odd is that it doesn't seem to matter how many wraps of 30g I do, it still comes out to somewhere between 1.5 Ohms and 2.0 Ohms. I tried anywhere from 6-10 wraps and it was still between 1.5-2.0 Ohms. I did try one with 4 wraps and it was right at 1 Ohm but I had a short when it fired and I never could get it to work.

It's also a much warmer vape than the stock coil which I really like.